Rabbinate Denounces Kahane

July 31, 1984

JERUSALEM (Jul. 30)

The Chief Rabbinical Council today denounced Rabbi Meir Kahane’s racist attitude toward Israeli Arabs and his threats to have all of them expelled and said that he did not “represent the Biblical view on the Arabs.”

The Council said that, regarding relations with the Arabs, the binding rule was that formulated by former Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, who advocated mutual understanding between Jews and Arabs.

Meanwhile, efforts continued today to introduce an anti-racism bill in the Knesset in a move to thwar Kahane’s vow to use the Knesset as a platform for his demands that Arabs be expelled, once he is seated as a Knesset member. Kahane’s Kach Party won one seat in the Knesset in last week’s elections.

The move to introduce an anti-racism bill is spearheaded by Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem, but at least two other groups plan a nationwide petition in support of an anti-racism law. Kollek, in an appeal to Knesset members, said they must not allow small but dangerous groups like Kach to act according to “dark passions and ideas” that “undermine the basic moral tenets of the State.”

A first move toward enacting such legislation was undertaken by Mapam MKs Dov Zakin and Elazar Granot. The two called on the chairman of the Knesset Law Committee to convene a meeting of the committee to prepare a first reading of an anti-racism bill, already proposed in the outgoing Knesset by Mapam MK Mohammad Wattad.